


My heart is in my shoes

by gloss



Category: Captain America (Comics)
Genre: Bucky's a time traveller in his own life, Coffee, Gen, mundane bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-30
Updated: 2010-07-30
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8016271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Well I don't need anybody/Because I learned/I learned to be alone.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>There are too many people in Bucky's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My heart is in my shoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeeinallcaps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeinallcaps/gifts).



> I found this in my DW journal while looking for something else. I am fond. ♥
> 
> For the "making coffee" square on my [](http://mundane-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[mundane_bingo](http://mundane-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) [card](http://gloss.dreamwidth.org/75532.html?#cutid1). Title and summary from Waits' "Anywhere I Lay My Head". Beta by G. Set vaguely c.Captain America v5 #40/New Avengers v1 #48: sort-of Dark Reign, when Bucky started hosting the New Avengers at Steve's Brooklyn ~~House of D~~ loft.

He did not so much live in Steve's place as occupy it. For the first couple months, Bucky slept on a bedroll in the living room, ate at the Greek diner across Atlantic Avenue, dressed in the hall closet.

As more Avengers moved into the building, however, his habits started to change.

They had to. It was hardly voluntary on his part.

Steve's place was bigger than any living space Bucky had ever known. He had gone from his father's quarters to barracks at Lehigh to Steve's tent, and then, during the war, wherever he could lay his head.

(Then fifty years in a tank like an undersea specimen, some monster from the depths, released only to stalk and kill.)

Too many bodies, all their voices, still made him jumpy -- hair prickling the back of his neck, fist tightening in his pocket. But he needed them here. Without their presence, he really was just squatting in a mausoleum.

With their presence, however, he had to pretend better than he had been to be human.

The coffee maker was the width of a breadbox, and half again as tall. The steel sides and front were clinical and intimidating. The array of buttons and nozzles, dials and displays, was utterly incomprehensible.

Sam leaned against the kitchen island. "Coffee almost ready?"

"The hell is this thing?" Bucky slapped the side of the machine. "My arm's less complicated to work."

"So that's a no?"

"No way Steve ever used this thing." Crossing his arms, he turned his back on the counter. "Whatever happened to a percolator and some Folger's?"

"We grew taste buds, for one thing." Sam clapped him on the shoulder, shifting him out of the way. "Step aside, grampa. Show you how it's done."

Bucky knew how to strike flint to make a fire, even in the depths of a Finnish February. He'd brewed coffee in a double-piece pot from Tuscaloosa to Tangiers, always added an extra spoonful, rationing be damned, _for the pot_. He'd sipped cafe au lait in Grenoble, tried not to spit out ersatz chicory grounds in Ljubljana.

Steve took his coffee light, with a little more sugar than he ever admitted to. He had a sweet tooth, Bucky had learned quickly, an undiscriminating one that loved apples and strawberries as much as Mounds bars and Valomilk cups.

Whenever he could, Bucky bartered for extra packets of sugar and candy from mess officers and WACs, just in case.

He always made it worth their while.

In the twenty-first century, however, everything was paid for. Steve's place was huge and well-stocked; Bucky had a SHIELD-issue credit card that always went through.

Next to him, Sam hummed a quick little tune as he bounced between two of the nozzles, catching dark coffee as it dripped, making a tiny pitcher of milk go foamy. He looked like a mad scientist in one of the serials that played before the main feature. All he needed was a white coat and a humpbacked assistant.

Humpbacked, or, Bucky realized, maybe one-armed and pig-ignorant would do in a pinch.

When he was finished, Sam pushed a cup toward Bucky, along with a small dish of golden-colored sugar.

"No real sugar?" Bucky asked. He could swear there was a bag, bigger than his head, of white sugar, somewhere in the countless cabinets.

Sam just shook his head. "That _is_ the real stuff."

Bucky added a spoonful and sniffed the coffee.

"Man," Sam said. He was an easygoing person, probably the most easygoing of all of Bucky's new acquaintances, but his frustration was starting to deepen his voice and tighten his expression. "Drink up."

The surface of the milk was curlicued with caramel-colored traces and bubbles.

Bucky took a breath. It did smell good, there was that.

"Oh, my **fucking** god, give me that fucking coffee right the hell now or I swear to god, I'll suck it out of your stomach --" Jessica Jones grabbed for Bucky's mug and slurped a good half of the coffee down. When she put the mug down, milk clung to her upper lip as precisely as Basil Rathbone's mustache. "Okay, that's the shit. Gimme more."

Over her head, Sam caught Bucky's eye and grinned.

Bucky took his jacket from the counter and shrugged it on. "I'm going to the diner for real coffee. Anyone?"

Jessica blew a Bronx cheer at that. Sam joined in.

The diner's coffee came hotter than anything, black as night, in cheerful little blue paper cups. Bucky quickened his steps, edging around a knot of Young Avengers arguing over one of their handheld video games, and, soon enough, he was out on the street.

Brooklyn's version of fresh air was pretty damp and sour, but he was getting more and more fond of it by the day.

"C'mon, man, hold up --" Sam called, half a block behind.

Bucky slowed to a stop and leaned against a newspaper box, waiting.


End file.
